There are times when an author challenges a reader by boldly declaring on the very first pages all that could interest him and still manages to keep him glued to the book page by page, till the end. It’s an author’s confidence in his writing ability, his power of words that make him believe that he can perform such a wonder. ‘Chronicles of a Death Foretold’ (CFADF) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (GGM) is one such book wherein the very first line that you read is ‘On the day they were going to kill him…’.
“He never thought it legitimate that life should make use of so many coincidences forbidden literature, so that there should be untrammeled fulfillment of a death so clearly foretold.”
Call it misfortune or coincidence, but on the day they were going to kill him almost everyone was aware of it and yet no one prevented it, everyone either took the news as a joke or left it on others to prevent it. Imagine a street full of people with each knowing the victim as well as the murderer and still the crime manages to happen, what a misfortune! Yet that’s what you find in CFADF.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: It’s my fifth review of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s work and I am enjoying it. My last rendezvous with GGM’s work i.e. ‘Of Love and other Demons’ was a bit letdown compared to ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ and ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’, GGM’s master works; but CFADF is right on target, it has GGM’s magic touch intact and is one of the best book written by GGM and is quite different in its style of writing from his other works. CFADF came in 1981 and an year after i.e. in 1982, GGM won Nobel prize, need I say more.
ABOUT THE PLOT: On the day they were going to kill Santiago Nasar everyone in the town knew about it. Hardly 6 hours had passed since their ill-fated marriage, while the festivities were still on, when Bayardo San Ramon quietly returned Angela Vicario to her mother in humiliation, on discovering that his newly wedded wife wasn’t a virgin as he had expected. When Angela disclosed the name of Santiago as the perpetrator to have deflowered her, her brothers swore to take the revenge and planned to kill Santiago for family honor. But reluctant to kill him they kept telling almost everyone they met, till the time of murder, about their intentions, but without revealing the reason for it. By the time morning arrived, everyone knew it; hours before the Mayor, local shopkeepers, his neighbors and his servants knew it; minutes before his mother and his friends knew it; and seconds before he himself knew it. While some took it as a mere joke, others hid it knowingly and still others tried their best to save his life.
Narrated by an anonymous character, who was Santiago’s friend 23 years back when the murder really happened and was probably the only person who came to know of the murder after it was committed. After 23 years, this character is trying to get to the real facts and reconstruct the murder , through the statements of the various people who either witnessed it or knew about it beforehand. He is trying to get to the answer of a question everyone still have on their mind: was it really Santiago Nasar who dishonored Vicario family? Or was he, just an innocent man who became a victim when Angela named him to conceal someone else’s name?
ABOUT THE BOOK: Written in a pseudo journalistic way, CFADF is an analysis of death through the words of people who were there, knew about it beforehand and witnessed it with their own eyes. Right in the very first chapter author reveals almost everything about the murder: the victim, the murderers and those who witnessed it. Chapters that follow, help bring the reader real close to the facts. With each page more and more characters pour in with details of their knowledge of the murder and you feel like analyzing and investigating the murder yourself. By the time the final chapter arrives, reader finds himself perfectly aware of the circumstances under which the crime happened. And though made very clear in the beginning itself still the reader find it mysteriously concealed and wonder whether the Vicario brothers will really succeed in killing him or not.
CFADF is a very short Novella with only 90 pages to its life. It’s a perfect example of appropriateness of words in telling the tale, without making it too short GGM has kept it fast paced and keep the readers interest intact throughout, a very important asset for the story where everything is revealed beforehand. If an event like this really happens, it’s quite an easy task to cover it the way GGM has done but to imagine it so well with all pieces falling right into their places is a tremendous task. Hats off to GGM for the way he has written this book, simply extraordinary. Frank Kafka’s Metamorphosis inspired GGM for this style of writing and he himself has acknowledged this fact.
One sub-plot that I loved reading is the love affair that grows between Ramon and Angela after the death of Santiago. How Angela falls in love with Ramon afterwards and letters that she keeps writing him almost every day for years till he finally arrives at her door. It reminds one of the eternal love story of Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza of ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ and brings some breather of a life in a story otherwise shadowed by death.
Two things that could annoy a reader though: too many character with Spanish names that non-spanish readers may find hard to remember and distinguish with flow of the story; secondly, the mystery remains the mystery with question still lingering, Was it Santiago’s own sin or someone else’s, for which he paid for with his life?
LAST WORDS: CFADF is exquisitely harrowing. Its the best of GGM in short Novellas. Read it for the powerful writing of GGM which has an amazing capability of engaging your interest no matter what he writes on. CFADF is interesting from start to finish. Recommending it very highly.
Ending the review with the only quote I have this time but interesting one : “A falcon who chases a warlike crane can only hope for a life of pain.”
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PYAR HUMEIN PHIR MILAEEGA....